In recent years, poker has become very popular. One of the most common variations of poker is Five Card Draw. In general, in Five Card Draw poker the player gets five cards dealt face up from a 52 card deck of playing cards. The player can discard none, one, a plurality or all of the five cards. Each discarded card is replaced with another card from the deck. This is called the draw. After the replacement, the cards are evaluated for winning combinations. For a five card poker game, there are ten general categories of hands, ranked from highest to lowest, as shown in Table 1 below.
TABLE 1Ranking of Five Card Poker Hands by CategoryRankNameExample1Royal Straight FlushA   K   Q   J   10  2Straight FlushK   Q   J   10   9  3Four of a KindJ   J♥ J♦ J   3  4Full HouseA♥ A♦ A   6♦ 6  5FlushA   J   8   6   2  6Straight8♦ 7   6   5   4  7Three of a KindQ   Q♥ Q♦ 6♦ 2  8Two Pair8♦ 8♥ 5♥ 5   2  9One PairK♦ K   8   7   2♥10High CardA♥ 10   7♦ 5   3  
Within each category, hands are ranked according to the rank of individual cards, with an Ace being the highest card and a two being the lowest card. There is no difference in rank between the four suits of cards. All hands can be ranked in a linear ranking from highest to lowest. Because suits are all of the same value, however, there are multiple hands that have identical rankings. For example, there are four equivalent hands for each type of straight flush, four of a kind, or flush. There are over a hundred equivalent hands for each two pair variation, and there are over 1,000 equivalent hands for each type of no-pair hand.
Numerous variations of poker exist, including Five Card Draw as mentioned above, Three Card Poker, Five Card Stud, Seven Card Stud, Hold'em (also called Texas Hold'em), Omaha (also called Omaha Hold'em), and Pai-Gow Poker. The variations in these games generally differ in the manner in which cards are dealt and in the manner and frequency in which bets are placed. Various criteria may also be used to determine the winning hand, including highest ranking hand, lowest ranking hand (Low-Ball), and where the high and low hands each win half of the pot (High-Low).
Another popular variant of Five Card Draw Poker is multi-hand poker. In this variation, the player plays three or more poker hands simultaneously. The player is dealt a first hand of five cards face-up from a first deck of cards. The player decides to hold none, some, or all of the dealt cards. The held cards are then replicated to the other hands. The first hand is then completed from the first deck of cards. The other hands are completed from their own separate deck of cards. Each of the hands is individually evaluated against a paytable, such as the one shown in Table 1. Numerous variations of multi-hand poker also exist, which enable the player to play a different number of hands simultaneously, such as up to a 100 hands.
Although these variations add excitement to the standard draw poker game play, there is a need to provide additional variations in multi-hand video poker games that provide additional win opportunities.